22 PROPERTIES OF MATTER 



If the nature of each be considered, the 

 will be found very different from the other ; it 

 is not by the transient and accidental color of 

 the skin, which different beings possess, whe- 

 ther that color be pallid or red, that the human 

 species, in general, is characterised. The ex- 

 ternal color may be imitated by art, upon -a 

 lump of clay, or a block of wood ; upon a dead, 

 almost as perfectly, as on a living subject; 

 these qualities, therefore, may be considered as 

 secondary, or accidental. It is, on the con- 

 trary, to the more permanent and indeli- 

 ble attribute of organisation, and of form of 

 action and of power, that animated beings 

 essentially possess, that every individual is 

 known to be what it really is, awd through 

 which it is distinguished from every thing else. 

 The same observations equally apply with 

 respect to the different species of common mat- 

 ter, of which the world is composed ; although 

 each species possesses particular properties of its 

 own, which are different from others, and that 

 a variety of changes between them are perpe- 

 tually taking place : the most solid bodies are 

 cften liquified into a fluid, and subtilised into 

 vapor, that vapors are often condensed, or 

 consolidated into a liquid, and even a solid 

 form. In whatever form it may exist, every 

 particle of which it is composed, continues to 

 possess one attribute which is common to the 



